There were no Dawn Services

today, none for ANZAC day.
I put the torch-lantern we have in the window at dawn. I know the Senior Cat was awake because I could see the reflection of his "little light" in his bedroom window. Across the street I could see another "torch-candle" alight.
It was all so extraordinarily quiet.
One of the things I have noticed with this "stay at home" message is how quiet it has been. I was used to quiet as a child. I came from a household where the radio was never playing in the back ground. The Senior Cat turned it on for the news in the morning - and we kittens remained silent while he caught up with events. Then it was turned off again until my brother and I were permitted to listen to "the Argonauts" in the afternoon. Both of us were Argonauts. What would modern children make of a radio program based around Greek mythology designed to educate children? They simply would not listen to it but we had art, music, natural history and literature as well as an immense range of general knowledge fed to us that way.
But, when the Argonauts program ended, we turned the radio off and went to do other things. I grew up without knowing about rock 'n roll or "pop" or a great many other things. Some of it I know now through reading but the music means little to me. I like quiet. I often wonder about how some of those who served in war must have longed for, at very least, quiet moments.
And, this morning, quiet was important. It isn't silence - that's an absence of noise. Quiet is something different. It lets you think.